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Wiesenthal Centre Position on French Celebrated Novelist Apology for Antisemitic Caricatures and Holocaust Denial Some Thirty Years Ago.

September 4, 2019

“An apology is inadequate... Yann Moix should be proactive, by publicly denouncing contemporary notorious French antisemites, such as Alain Soral and Dieudonné.”

The French weeklyL’Expressexposure of celebrated novelist, Yann Moix’s expressions thirty years ago of antisemitism and Holocaust denial - a crime under French law - has engendered an uproar in intellectual circles. Moix, who has reportedly been criticized for uncomplimentary remarks about “over 50 year-old women” and is now suing his family, apparently for abuse during his childhood, following indirect claims he made in his autobiographical novel. Now, at 51, he has apologized for his caricatures and sick Holocaust jokes of when he was 21. An example speaks of a Jew bargaining the cost of his deportation ticket to a concentration camp.L’Express’ revelation also resulted in Moix’s withdrawal of his latest novel,“Orléans”, from distribution, confirmed by his well-respected publisher Grasset.

While his friend, Jewish intellectual Bernard-Henri Levi, has accepted Moix’s apology, various Jewish organizations are less forthcoming.

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, has suggested that “An apology is inadequate... Yann Moix should be proactive, by publicly denouncing contemporary notorious French antisemites, such as Alain Soral and Dieudonné.”

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).